APC Sweeps FCT Council Polls as PDP Cries Foul Over ‘Forced’ Candidate Withdrawals and Wike’s Shadow

The dust has settled on the 2026 FCT Area Council elections, and the political map of the nation’s capital has turned almost entirely broom-blue. In a sweeping victory on Saturday, the All Progressives Congress (APC) captured five of the six available chairmanship seats, leaving the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with just a solitary win in Gwagwalada.

The headline victory came from the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), where incumbent Christopher Maikalangu successfully fended off a spirited challenge to retain the most powerful local seat in the territory. However, the victory has been met with a firestorm of “word trading” between the two major parties.

The PDP is currently in a state of high-octane fury, alleging that the election was “rigged from the start” through the strategic intimidation of its candidates. In the days leading up to the vote, several PDP flagbearer most notably in AMAC publicly withdrew from the race to endorse the APC, a move the PDP hierarchy describes as a “democratic heist” orchestrated by the FCT Ministry.

“What we saw wasn’t an election; it was a psychological war on the opposition,” a PDP spokesperson fumed on Monday. “When you have candidates withdrawing 48 hours to a poll after ‘consultations’ at the top, the ‘State of Harmony’ in our democracy is officially under threat.”

The APC, however, is busy popping champagne. Party leaders characterized the results as a “referendum on performance,” arguing that voters chose the APC because of the visible road projects and urban renewal currently transforming Abuja. They mocked the PDP’s allegations of intimidation, suggesting the opposition should focus on why its own members are “fleeing a sinking ship.”

While the politicians argue, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is celebrating a technical success. Despite a few logistical hiccups in Kuje, the 2026 Electoral Act’s mandate for real-time result transmission was largely upheld, with the IReV portal providing a transparent look at the numbers as they trickled in from the 2,822 polling units.

With the APC now controlling the vast majority of the capital’s grassroots, the focus shifts to whether the PDP will head to the tribunal to challenge the “brotherhood withdrawals” that defined this election cycle.